In commercially available windshield wiper blades with a supporting frame for the wiper strip, the strip suffers unavoidable wear that reduces the quality of cleaning accomplished, so the wiper blade has to be replaced from time to time. However, since the supporting bracket frame of the wiper blade is as a rule still fully functional at that time, for reasons of cost a so-called refill set is offered to the final user; it includes a wiper strip, two spring rails to be accommodated in facing longitudinal grooves of the wiper strip, and a securing clamp. This refill set can be inserted, after the removal of the corresponding original parts, into the retaining claws of the frame parts; the securing clamp secures the spring rails in the wiper strip on the one hand and also, with elastically deflectable spring arms and hooks disposed on them, anchors the wiper strip together with the spring rails to the supporting bracket frame. An embodiment of this kind is known from German Published, Examined Patent Application DE-AS 14 30 338.
In the wiper blade of the invention, however, only a single spring rail--instead of the two outer spring rails--is accommodated in a longitudinal channel that is closed all the way around and is disposed in the head strip of the wiper strip. To secure against longitudinal shifting of the spring rail, in a known wiper blade (French Patent Application FR 2 267 909) of this generic type, the spring rail has been made shorter than the wiper strip and provided with a dovetail-like recess on both ends, into which recess tablike extensions of end plates that fit the recess are inserted; these extensions protrude partway beyond the cross section of the head strip and thus assure that the wiper strip, inserted into the claws of the supporting bracket frame, cannot shift out of the claws longitudinally during wiper operation. The protruding regions of the end plates also assure that the wiper strip is secured on the supporting bracket frame. Accordingly, the final user is given four individual parts that he has to then mount by himself. Mounting the second end plate is especially difficult, because the extension thereof cannot be introduced into the recess of the spring rail until the applicable end thereof--after the longer, elastic wiper strip is pressed backward, is exposed.